Carol Burris, the principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, New York, was an early proponent of the Common Core standards. She wrote a book about how to implement them to benefit students.
But as the standards are turning into reality, what she imagined is going sour. She recently wrote two articles (here and here) about why she has decided she cannot support the Common Core.
To her dismay, the Common Core has turned out to be a way to standardize curriculum and testing across the nation and to generate uniform data.
This is not what she hoped for.
She writes:
“I confess that I was naïve. I should have known in an age in which standardized tests direct teaching and learning, that the standards themselves would quickly become operationalized by tests. Testing, coupled with the evaluation of teachers by scores, is driving its implementation. The promise of the Common Core is dying and teaching and learning are being distorted. The well that should sustain the Core has been poisoned.”
In her second article, she expresses concern about the developmentally inappropriate nature of the standards in the early grades. She explains them in this way:
“The disconnect between the standards and childhood development is not difficult to explain. The standards were developed through backwards mapping, that is, standards for college readiness were established and then skills were walked backward through the grades. However, children move forward not backward through development, and as any pediatrician will tell you, they do so at individual, unique paces.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perhaps the problem is at least as much the age-grade tracking that we use. There was some interesting findings out of the UK that the chances of being accepted to Oxford or Cambridge (and in fact the chances of even applying) depended crucially on the birth month. Students born just before the age cutoff for school fared worse, those born just after the best.
This has long been known in the world of sports, but perhaps a parent would be best advised to red-shirt their children for academic reasons as well.
Kudos to Carol for continuing to be one of the bravest leaders in New York state! Keep writing and giving the public your insight. The public is slowly catching on as more and more truth is shared in the media.
Arne Duncan, John KIng, and President Obama, this is courage, character and leadership! This is caring for children!
This past weekend I attended a 5 hour Kinsella workshop, Kate is one of the big supporters of common core–and I like a lot of her work. When I mentioned to her that some teachers in our district are using read 180, which she wrote, she commented something to the affect that they were probably not teaching it correctly. Hmm, first of all it is ridiculous to write curricula that needs to be followed word for word in order to be effective, and then assuming it is not being taught well seems hypocritical.
I enjoyed the workshop, but I am realizing that a lot of these ed leaders who support the common core assume that teachers are not capable of writing curricula. When I commented that I do not like canned curricula, they both replied that teachers do not have enough time to write quality curricula. This for me was an aha moment I realized that all these ed “leaders” assume we need to BUY curricula because we cannot write it. And of course so publishing companies can make money.
As so many have commented on this blog, canned curricula, as it is being proposed seems to be leading to the deprofessionalization of teaching. If someone else is writing curricula that needs to be verbatim, why do we need teachers.
And as for canned curricula after the first unit it is usally BORING because it is the same thing almost every day.
I think it is important to differentiate between the Common Core and the operationalization of the common core. I fear that the “common core” has been inextricably linked with “world class standards” in the minds of those who read the MSM… and I can see the privatizers asserting that those of us who want developmentally appropriate instruction for all children are “opposed to world class standards for all children” while those who want standardization are “in favor of tough standards for all kids— even poor kids!”. We’ve already lost the term “school reform” to privatizers… let’s not lose the fact that we want all children to meet “world class standards”.
Stringing those three words together may sound impressive but the statement is devoid of meaning. “World Class Standards” means absolutely nothing when we are talking about educating children. Can anyone describe what those three words in tandem actually mean?
The term “developmentally appropriate” has been practically banned in any discussion about the needs of children. This happened in my own school district. Years ago, we actually thought about how best to teach our children. Thematic/ centers-based learning was in and workbooks and lecture-style teaching were out. Kids learned-and enjoyed the process of learning. Somewhere along the way we lost that ideal. Increased standards and accountability have made teachers wary of teaching children in ways that weren’t similar to The Test they would have to take in a few years. Worksheets similar to Test items reassured us that we were getting young children ready for The Test. We lost faith in what we knew were best practices for young children. It’s time to reacquaint ourselves with the works of child development specialists like Piaget and Gesell.
Last Friday was a professional development day, and the morning was spent on common core training. We had to get into groups and puzzle-piece read the introduction of what it was and was not. These common core folks seem to think that they have made an amazing revelation that ALL students can learn. That refrain seemed to be repeated quick often throughout the documents that we were given. With each “unpacking” individual grade level core standards and the testing of the literature complexity rubric came my private thoughts how much better I could be showing my belief in the learning abilities of ALL my students by having a day to quietly plan and organize in my room.
As for READ 180–that program requires such unrealistic amounts of instructional time for students that it probably can’t be implemented exactly as written in many schools.
Thank you for being a rational and impassioned voice for NY educators in particular and all educators in general. I’ve had enough of that State Ed “bootstrapping” of texts by lexile level based on some “white paper” (read as business policy paper vs academic research). CC standards might be approrpriate for highly motivated, economically advantaged kids, but not so for many who live in poverty or economic stress, or who are ESL or SWD. Let teachers, not vendors, design materials to meet “standards.”
Personally, I do not want to write curricula…..in my school we use the scope and sequence of a subject along with the CCSS and have to pull together units of study out of thin air without any books or materials then import them into curriculum maps….It’s time consuming and frustrating…..I feel like I should be paid for this work because it is basically a full time job……Also on the CCSS not being developmentally appropriate in the early grades, it is difficult and unfair to have to teach second graders to write opinion pieces when they don’t even know that they have a thought!
As parents and educators we need to take control of curricula and assessment. Our limited education funding need not go to Pearson and the other publishers. I suggest we collaboratively write our own texts and curricula using the burgeoning wiki book format. Our tax dollars need to go directly to schools and teacher salaries, not corporations and out of touch administrators.
The Common Core Curriculum has been the dream of political wonks since Clinton was our President. Goes to show what can be done with a focused and concerted effort.
Make no mistake, my friends, the sole purpose of the Common Core is to turn education into a business. Whereas schools and states before had choices about what educational materials to buy and implement, they are now being forced to buy into programs and materials that are aligned to the Common Core. This is purely to allow businesses to profit. In addition, the testing that has come attached to the Common Core is designed to do one ting and one thing only – prove that public schools are a failure. No educator in their right mind would ever implement a testing program and acknowledge that most of the skills have not been taught to their students, and acknowledge that most of their students would fail the assessment. If public schools are percieved as failures, that crack in the door that has been opened for the privatization of schools becomes a flood gate.
Look at the data, as I am so conveniently often told. Our best kids beat all of the other best kids in the world. The biggest indicator of educational performance in the US is not the school, or the teacher, or how many tests we can cram into a child’s educational career….IT’S THE POVERTY! Fix poverty, and you’ve fixed the biggest problem schools and educators face.
John, agreed!!!
Teachers and administrators soooooo educated yet soooooo controlled by the 1% educrates Teachers and administrator’s soooooo educated yet soooooo controlled by the 1% educrates. You are pawns in their game. Public education simply helps keep them in the 1%. Their children are “tracked” into private schools…..no need for common core there…..
Folks, after 25 years as a teacher and administrator the formula are simple, track kids so that ALL can develop their potential. Put discipline and order ahead of it all.